This panel will trace the history of how thinking on economics has evolved over the past sixty years. Since the Second World War, the problems facing poor countries, and the solutions proposed to address them, have changed in response to new waves of thinking, competing schools of thoughts, and the mixed results of applying these ideas to real-life experience. Specifically, this panel presents a brief comparative history of thinking on trade, foreign aid, growth, social protection, and inclusion, and the prospects going forward for each of these as a means of ‘achieving’ development. Each of the presenters will build on their contributions to the edited volume International development: ideas, experience and prospects released by Oxford University Press in spring 2014.